Panyassis of

Halicarnassus Halicarnassus (; grc, Ἁλικαρνᾱσσός ''Halikarnāssós'' or ''Alikarnāssós''; tr, Halikarnas; Carian: 𐊠𐊣𐊫𐊰 𐊴𐊠𐊥𐊵𐊫𐊰 ''alos k̂arnos'') was an ancient Greek city in Caria, in Anatolia. It was locate ...

, sometimes known as Panyasis ( grc, Πανύασις), was a 5th-century BC

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

epic poet from

in the

Persian Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...

(modern-day

Bodrum Bodrum () is a port city in Muğla Province, southwestern Turkey, at the entrance to the Gulf of Gökova. Its population was 35,795 at the 2012 census, with a total of 136,317 inhabitants residing within the district's borders. Known in ancient ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

Life

Panyassis was the son of Polyarchus ( grc, Πολύαρχος) from Halicarnassus, but the historian

Duris of Samos Duris of Samos (or Douris) ( grc-gre, Δοῦρις ὁ Σάμιος; BCafter 281BC) was a Greek historian and was at some period tyrant of Samos. Duris was the author of a narrative history of events in Greece and Macedonia from 371BC to 281BC ...

claimed that Panyasis was the son of Diocles ( grc, Διοκλῆς) and from

Samos Samos (, also ; el, Σάμος ) is a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese, and off the coast of western Turkey, from which it is separated by the -wide Mycale Strait. It is also a sepa ...

. In addition, the historian

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...

was either his nephew or his cousin. There was also another person of the same name, possibly the grandson of the poet, who wrote a work in two books on dreams.Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)
/ref> In 454 BC, Panyassis was executed for political activities by the tyrant of Halicarnassus and grandson of Artemisia, Lygdamis ΙΙ (), after an unsuccessful uprising against him. Panyasis was ranked by the Alexandrian School with the great epic poets. The

Suda The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souida ...

encyclopedia mentions Panyassis.

Works

Panyassis enjoyed relatively little critical appreciation during his lifetime, but was posthumously recognised as one of the greatest poets of

archaic Greece Archaic Greece was the period in Greek history lasting from circa 800 BC to the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, following the Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical period. In the archaic period, Greeks settled across the M ...

. His most famous works are: the ''Heracleia'' about the hero

Heracles Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptiv ...

, written in epic hexameter, and the ''

Ionica Ionica may refer to: People *Ionică, a Romanian version of John (given name) * Viorica Ionică (born 1955), a Romanian handballer * Ionică Minune (born 1959), a Romani-Romanian accordionist * Ionica Munteanu (born 1979), a Romanian female handba ...

'' about the histories of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, reportedly written in pentameter. These works are preserved today only in fragments. It is believed that he also wrote other works which have since been lost.

References

Ancient Halicarnassians Ancient Greeks from the Achaemenid Empire Early Greek epic poets 5th-century BC Greek people 5th-century BC poets Executed ancient Greek people 5th-century BC executions Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown {{AncientGreece-poet-stub